


Of Parkour, Lockets, and Many Cups of Coffee

by SpicyWalrus



Category: Assassin's Creed
Genre: Busking, Multi, Parkour
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-06-19
Updated: 2013-05-23
Packaged: 2017-11-08 03:10:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,749
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/438477
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SpicyWalrus/pseuds/SpicyWalrus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes, it's REALLY hard to tell what's up with everybody once they invite new people into their lives. These everybodies include Desmond, Ezio, and Altaïr.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Esegui, tesoro!

**Author's Note:**

> Since its a modern Italy AU, I decided to do whatever and make Altair and Ezio seperated brothers (since Altair is Syrian, and Ezio is Italian, I'm sure their daddy got around if you know what I mean whetever why am I still typing), and Desmond as their trusty lil' American cousin.  
> 

It was just any other normal day, and you wanted to see the sunrise off of the top of a none-too popular apartment building roof in Italy. A huff left your chapped lips after you had licked them to see if it would help their horrid state—bad idea, was what that was. The white hood over your head shadowing your face just enough to see the skyline without the glare from the obnoxiously white clouds above. They were kind of intimidating, actually.

For a moment you wondered what your brother was doing, but shrugged it off nonetheless; he was most likely wooing some gorgeous Dame again. “Oh, brother,” you think aloud, dragging your hand acrossed your face in an attempt to wipe the smirk off of your lips. But it only grows wider with the rising sun.

It’s bright—almost too bright to look at for the average person. But you have a gift, just like your younger brother, the rambunctious young man he is. You rather enjoy the gift of your interchangeable sight-seeing, though sometimes it’s annoying when you can’t quite control when to switch it on or off. You just aren’t quite used to this five-year-old ability… Yet.

The sun is well above the horizon after your thinking skit, about an inch below the level of your eyes, and you take a small moment to notice how the risen sun made shadows cast on the entire town. Even your own, dark amber eyes are covered by the shadow of your hood. 

But something suddenly blocks your view, and you look at whatever the hell it is because you’re just curious as to what the fuck—

It’s a man. A man, and everything seems to be in slow motion, so slow at this moment that you can see him look back at you with a face that looks sickly and weak. He has a small beard, you note, and he has a black jacket on over some sort of white shirt. Your eyes meet in this slowed moment you two strangers share, and for a tiny second you think you know him.

He’s gone in a flash, and your brandy eyes are wide in surprise at the gut feeling you’re experiencing. The gut feeling is what you’d like to categorize as I-might-have-just-made-a-freerunner-buddy. Yay?

“Hey—“ you try and yell, but your feet are faster than your silver tongue and you’re suddenly running after him, a bit confused at why he’s only using his left arm. You brush off the though—you’re running, for God’s sake! On top of ledges and buildings? Yeah, not the right time to think.

Black jacket’s feet are moving faster than you can recognize, and you both jump down from the roof of the light-coloured building down to the ground after the various beams and-- _finally_ \-- to the ground. But then, he skids to a halt when you see that he has no room to move anymore—you’re both trapped in an alleyway.

So, being the gentleman you are (unlike that unruly brother of yours), you take the time to speak up. 

“Aye, could you just stop for a second?” you ask, voice soft and welcoming. All you see is his face looking down at you with a mild scowl, but fear lacing his dark irises. 

Your striking eyes watch as he jumps onto a pile of nearby boxes, one by one, crates leading up to a balcony of the apartment alleyway you’re in, leaving you with a heavy sigh and a sketchy wall to climb. So, you begin with the flag poles somebody had out and up, hoping they were sturdy enough for your nearly-pure-muscle weight. 

Surprisingly, it does, and you lurch yourself forwards and you’re flying through the air with a grin on your face—you like the feeling of nothing around you, that’s all. You scheme a plan that quickly turns to action while your eyes are tracking this man’s every move, which is currently running from the wall to the next balcony, then the next, to the few beams sticking out from the walls. Your feet hit the ground though you roll and get back to your feet once more, launching yourself to the next, much more upper balcony railing, and heave your feet over the top before your right hand hurls your entire body over the ledge with a flip.

You’re out of breath, chest heaving beneath your white hoodie, cursing to yourself, _”Damn!”_ when you lose sight of the man in the black jacket. Taking in a long, needed breath; you skid your foot back on the roof’s surface, taking in breath by breath until your breathing stops and your eyelids lift up again, that odd _sight_ coming back into play.

Smiling to yourself, you push yourself forwards with your hind-placed foot, and begin running once more, following a lightly contrasted trail to where you hope this stranger went. Why? Well, you tell yourself that maybe you have a feeling, sort of, inside that tells you know this man.

Especially how he only has one arm? I mean… Who wouldn’t be able to forget _that_? Besides that, his eyes were familiar, too, and the way his lips parted the slightest when he looked back at you as if he was going to say something caught you far too off guard. For now, the only thing on your mind was to stop him and ask him who he was. And, perhaps, hope that along the lines be assured that you two will be able to see each other again.

When your feet hits the shingles of a tall (actually quite frightening in height) building, and you’re just about to grab him and you can feel your fingers right at the _fabric!_

But then, you watch him jump, a graceful, straight dive off of the ledge of the roof. A yell catches in the back of your throat, watching him fall straight down from the well-over-twenty-foot building and out of your own eyeshot. Skidding to a halt at the edge of the roof, options are running out of your head and you run a tan hand over your face. It's fucking hot now, not only that, but that was just your luck 

Then it comes to you.

All because of the eagle perches along a suspended beam about twenty ten feet away from the edge only a block away—luckily in the direction in which the truck bed Black Jacket landed in, watching him intently as his one hand reaches back, over his head, and pulls his hood back on. Your lips turn up into a smile and you near immediately start to run, footsteps gaining in velocity and speed with every half second until you lift your head up and see the end of the shingles you’re running on and you just feel weightless and go for broke.

 

The eagle on the crane-suspended beam screeches and flies away when your hands clap onto the sides, gloves allowing the grip to be a bit stronger than without them, and you hoist yourself up and get your balance.

The beam is longer than you expected, but that’s okay because you’re already running and who gives a shit about the length anyways? You’re free running on a scaffold suspended in mid-air, for God’s sake! Your feet are moving at a reasonable pace, and you jump once more from one place to another, this time from the scaffold (of course) to the building balcony just next to a nearby intersection. But _lord_ you are so close to being beside that truck and your feet are padding against the roof again, breathing coming out in short huffs.

Amber eyes of yours burrow into the back of Black Jacket’s head, making sure to switch your sight to see better, keeping track of your footing and the truck as well. He’s close now, and you can see the truck slowing to a stop at a nearby crosswalk, taking your opportunity and launching yourself from the market rooftops to the back of the truck, rolling violently to his feet, quickly staggering to stand in front of him.

The silence between you two is almost deathly until the truck starts to move with a violent jerk at both of your feet, making you stumble backwards in the midst of all the thoughts running through your mind. His hood is shading his face, but you can see the visible snarl on his face before, in the blink of an eye, he throws a punch at you—straight in the jaw. 

Stooping your head back, it’s easily counteracted with a grab and twist of his only arm, but he hooks you from around the ankles with his feet and you instantly slam to the metal bed of the giant truck. Just then, you notice it’s a cola truck. 

Oh, c’mon, focus, you’re about to get locked in a headlock by this guy! Your arm is quicker than his, grabbing his elbow before anyone can even notice you two were fighting atop this truck. Which, you now notice as you hold the black-hooded man in his place, has yet to cross anyone’s mind around here. Blacky gives up fighting with a disgruntled sound, and his voice is somewhat young, scared. “Why did you follow me?” he asks you, and you let out a shaky sigh.

“I love a good chase, what can I say, brother?” you retort with a small laugh, trying to make light of this subject; you get a jab of a heel to the foot. “Aye,” you peep out, sliding your poor little foot back and listening to the words being thrown at you. 

“Do not call me brother,” Blacky spits at you, and the venom in his voice almost _stings_ you. “Let go of me.”

You comply with a curt nod and both of you lean to the right when the truck takes a left turn, keeping best balance as possible. Slowly coming back to the earth-level unlike how the turn did in such an unruly way, both of you take in shaky breaths and lift your hands at the same time.

“My name is M--,” his voice cracks out, unsheathing his face from underneath his billowy hood; for a moment your heart skips a beat at the sight of his full face. “Malik,” the black-haired man finishes with a small release of his lungs. 

You can only nod, amber eyes training over his face before you uncover your own face from your white hood, watching his eyes follow the three-finger-and-thumbed hand that lets your hood fall back. “Altair,” you roll off of your tongue, cracking your knuckles and locking gazes with this Malik guy.

The silence comes again, and you take in the sight of each other, as if inviting a new wolf into a pack. It makes you wonder for a few moments if he’ll ever see you again, or if he’ll run off again.

“Haven’t I seen you somewhere?”

Malik’s eyes widen with yours, unblinking until the laughing comes. It makes your stomach feel uneasy in such a good way of how eerie the simultaneousness of your voices are, but both of your laughing comes to a stop when the driver comes to a sudden turn, knocking everyone but you off their feet—that everyone being Malik.

Your hands clasp in no time flat to keep him from falling off of the giant truck, and his brows furrow in an almost angry manner when you groan and pull him back up onto the top of the truck. “Malik,” you finally speak up, huffing out a breath when he gets to his feet and brushes himself off with that one arm. 

“What?” he retorts with vigor, a bad type of vigor, and his eyes nearly pierce through your skull. 

“Who taught you to run like that?

Malik is instantly silent, and he takes in a shaky breath and looks to the side, to the people staring at him. “Leave me be,” says the tan one with the black hair. You don’t understand at first, wanting to apologize right then and there for bringing up anything that would irk him—all you asked was who taught him to move so smoothly! _And_ with one arm! 

“Wait, I didn’t mean any harm, please,” you reach out your hand, keeping the black-jacketed Malik in his place before he can turn a complete 180. This guy was bitter, wasn’t he? Even after you had try to make a nice remark to start off this not-so-great first impressionistic greeting? Whatever, you think, throwing all thoughts out the window when Malik took a step back, focusing his eyes on something.

It was a flag pole, you note, and before you can yell “Malik,” he’s already jumping off and grabbing on with that one arm and swinging himself away into a roof planter. 

“Merda,” you mumble to yourself, looking around for any possible refuge that isn’t on top of a moving semi truck. You don’t have much luck, no matter how promising the bridge ledge up ahead looks, and you have nary any time to think before it’s just a meter away from your head.

A car horn almost makes you lose your focus, but not enough to teeter your timing on grabbing the bottom ledge to the bridge and swinging your legs up underneath the overpass-like arch to get the least bit of leverage for the hands of yours that are grabbing franticly for the bricks. But, of course, your shoes just have to lose grip on the cement underbelly of this damn bridge, trembling fingers falling away from the bricks and you’re stomach is in your throat for a matter of what seems to be ten seconds at least. Though, you aren’t even that high. You close your eyes and wait to hit the ground, trying your best to shake your head at yourself.

 

Until you’re grabbed and the wind is rushing through your ears and hair and you’re being held by someone. It feels a bit too familiar. “Brother,” your ears register the loud, almost mocking voice, and you look up to see the one you hoped least to find you. “What were you thinking up there?”

“Ezio, put me in the car, or I will castrate you if you keep speaking,” you snap, too immaturely for your liking, but you are being held by your Italian brother who’s sitting out of the sunroof of… Whose car is this?

“Fine, fine,” Ezio mocks your favorite words, leaving you with nothing to do but puff out your cheeks and pout briefly. The wind stops around you and your back hits a firm cushion underneath you—this must be…

“You two need psychiatrists,” a voice rings from the front of the car, thick with an American chime. You let out a shaky huff of relief when you straighten yourself up in the seat, staring at the rear-view mirror to get a better glimpse at who was driving—you knew too many Americans to be sure of who this one was.

“You’re the one who drank absinthe and wouldn’t go to bed because a supposedly green woman was in your bed!” Ezio chimes from his place lazily (and sideways…ly) fixated in the front seat with an added laugh at the end. 

“He—That happened..?” the driver speaks again, moving his head just enough upwards to get a look at you staring into the same mirror. You nod quietly to yourself, shaking your head for not fully recognizing that voice at first—shame on you! 

“Cousin,” you let flow from your mouth with a smile, happy to see lil’ Desy from his place cooped up in Venice. “I hope you aren’t visiting just to combust our oven again,” you muse with a soft, vaguely mocking yet reminiscent laugh, watching a partially visible part of his face flush with a somewhat open embarrassment. “Don’t deny it.”

“I’m not denying, Altair, I’m just kind of closed off to the fact that I’m not a damn housewife,” Desmond retorted back to you with a small grin, taking a left turn off of the main street. “So who was that guy, anyways?”

There, right there, the question you didn’t truthfully want to answer, but knew that you probably should anyways—Who _was_ that guy anyways? Malik, that’s the first thing you knew; other than him having one arm and being a parkour master. .. With one arm. For a brief second you wonder how that happened, and _swear_ to yourself that you knew him…

“Hello? You in there, man?” breaks you from your obvious daze, and you turn to your little American with a raised, scarred eyebrow. “Oh, right,” you nod out, biting the corner of your lip before parting your lips to take in a breath to speak. But it doesn’t come to you, and you close your mouth with a shrug and shake of your tan head. “His name—or at least he _said_ his name was—Malik… One arm-- and scared looking.” 

The car went silent, a thick silence that only meant every one of them were thinking along with you, and it made you shift uncomfortably after the duration of a few seconds. You hear a muffled sigh from your separated brother, head turning as soon as you hear it. “What are you thinking..?”

“He looked like that kid I used to see next to that old cathedral,” Ezio started, shrugging with both his shoulders and hands simultaneously, making your brow furrow. Wasn’t that kid homeless? No, it couldn’t be that guy, he looked… Well, he had an undeniably fearful look in his black eyes, and he looked underfed, as well. God, if only you knew _more_ about the bastard, maybe you would have an explanation!

You slow your mind down when you start to get tense like usual, running your hands down your face with a huff. “We can only pray it wasn’t him, but hell, if he was that kid now, I’d give him a place to live—he had one arm, too, so the chances that it is him—“ Ezio stopped babbling with a loud sigh, covering his mouth in more thought. The silence fell again, and both the brothers looked at each other, and then to the silent other.

It took quite a while for Desmond to realize he was being stared down, but when he did, he looked at the two of you, then the road, then the you and the road again; speaking up after a moment or two. “What’s the chance of you ever seeing him again, Tai?” he asks you, causing a moment of worrying your lip to come along.

“It’s slim, actually—he ran off after I asked where he learned to run so well,” you murmur, tilting your head before you sat back into your seat with a small muse of, “Especially with one arm.” The other two laughed and frowned (the laughing on Ezio’s part, the jejune bastard), at your small comment, a sigh leaving Desmond’s lips almost inaudibly. “We’ll have to see, man,” he hums to you, taking another turn that nudges you a little off balance, pushing yourself away from the window that your head almost hit. 

You only nod in response, watching as your flat comes into view, the car stopping slowly. Your lips turn up into a small smile—you need a morning shower for sure.

The stairs take no time at all, even when you took the normal way and the other two took the less hard way—which was, yes, hopping from rail to rail. It took less time, and was truly sort of a custom to the three of you. But you just felt like thinking, so you took the stairs the normal way up to the door in a matter of twenty seconds or so, you didn’t quite count. But even when you turn the knob and shake your head at the Ezio running around with a Dos Equis completely shirtless, you can only imagine what the rest of the day is going to be like for you. Well, let’s infer a bit:

Step one; from the looks of you almost killing yourself falling off of a bridge in the middle of a main street, you think that maybe you won’t have the best of luck.

Step two; from the looks of Ezio immediately skipping the morning races and grabbing a beer, he’s probably saving energy for the underground fights later. He always does this on Thursdays, you’ve figured out some time ago.

Step three; from the looks of all of the above, Desmond is apparently living with you now—he’s a nomad, so you don’t even pretend to act surprised at that, and Ezio wouldn’t go out tonight if you were the only one here; he doesn’t trust you alone.

And then, finally; Ezio brings up that his nose has been itching all day, and then Desmond agrees, causing you to third that. Sharing a silence once more, you all exchange similar looks all of expectancy from Desmond, sarcasm from yourself, and much of a “The fuck?”-esque look from Ezio. He doesn’t believe those superstitious things, you and Desmond come to find very often. 

Something’s up for sure, you think for a moment or two, pursing your lips to the side and leaning against the wall next to the kitchen in shallow thought. You could’ve sworn you had just _seen_ Malik before, somewhere, sometime, somehow. But you decide you’ll find out soon enough, and with a sigh, you step away from the wall with a quiet unzip of your jacket and a toss of the lifeless fabric into your bedroom.

Today might be a good day, really. You just got to keep your hopes low, that’s all.


	2. This for That

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's Ezio's turn to roam about. His ear leads to what his eye catches.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been, what, nearly a year since I started this? Well look who is legitamitely back!  
> The word Busker is used here; it's a word for a musical street performer, or someone who preforms for money donations in public, for those who didn't know. If there are errors, tell me: It's 4am and I'm woozey.

Two hundred euros. That, last night, was the amount you were paid to beat two men down to the ground. Two hundred, albeit slightly unfair and _maybe_ illegal, euros.

Spending eighty on food for you, Desmond and Altair together leave you with at least one hundred to keep to yourself. For every hundred won, ten went into the trio's savings. And you won many fights.

An outing with a sore shoulder from the added exertion of two men equaling an entire juggernaut to take down and yesterday's afternoon free-races on the town meant that you was doing the simple stuff today. So, you make plans to buy a loaf of bread, a gallon of milk, meat, and maybe some potatoes. Onions, too, if any are good, and whatever the hell else you find convenient. 

On the way to buy those things, though, your eagle eyes don't so much catch a sudden curiosity as do your ears: the melodic sounds, fluctuating smoothely from frenzied to sensual, of an instrument. It's a... six-string acoustic something, made of Oak and perfectly tuned strings, your ears tell you. When you look over, it's the fact that a perfectly shabby man with a waistcoat is playing a Guitarrón uruguayo that makes you furrow your brow. Not in confusion, but a decadence of reason.

_The Busker_ is what the you deem him in a brisk moment of what you think was eye contact.

Blonde hair to his shoulders, an unshaven face and kind, lax, closed eyes as one leg rests over the other at the edge of the street. His stance, sitting there, is so natural and full of lazy grace as relaxed fingers, soft skin from knuckle to fingernail, strum and pluck each string in a way that could bring a woman to his bed in an instant. OR, you think, maybe a man to his bed. Either way, the Busker, this guitarist, is attracting bird by bird a flock of thirsty warblers to his oasis. This oasis, that divine melody, is what many seem to have trouble resisting.

It isn't very late in the day (you don't care much for time anyway) and the sun's angle is just right so that the blonde's disciples suffer in the sun just to taste his aura. It's wonderful to watch from afar. You take the time to admire the way this man sways, feels, his music he plays-- with a strong passion, if at that. Looking hard enough, you see stains of green and white, perhaps a little reddish brown, on the guitarist's fingers, and you wonder just what the hell this man does for a living.

One thing you notice, too, is the way the blonde man, the Busker, never makes eye contact with anyone in the small crowd around him. Detatched, in his own world, you sigh. The farther you climb down to the ground in this alleyway acrossed from mister Busker, the more things you see. What's most intriguing, though, isn't the couple tangoing to his music, but rather the young brunette holding a large bundle of small, slender sticks next to him. Dropping down to the ground, you brush yourself off, before walking to the outskirts of the Guitarist's fan circle, finding purchase in a streetlight pole to lean against. The young brunette holds out one of the sticks to a donater of five euros and you realize what it is; it's incense. In exchange for every donation of money given to this guitar-God, the other young and ringlet-headed man gives them as a favor. 'Quid pro quo,' you think, and smirk to yourself underneath the off-white hood you pull up over your head.

The Busker sways himself and strums, strums the strings each individually into a short-lived brigde of notes that sends him into a smiling manner of elation. Something inside of you wants to be him in this moment, this closing of music that gathers emotions and physicality, sexuality, _beauty_ , and stretches them together into his fancied comet tail of appealing notes. 

The end comes within two beats, the blonde looking like he'd seen a God, eyes light with power and enlightenment, and you think _damn, he's talented._ Something about this scene leaves you with perhaps the same exhiliration through empathy as this man is experiencing when he kisses his hand, slowly holding it up to the crowd before him. In a rush it comes to you just like their clapping: _applause erupting out through the crowd, in their way of showing you that you matter and that you are a victor in the wide, broad selection of every person they've ever seen. They appreciate you for what you've done, they see you and want to baske in your talent, in your power over your abilities._

" _Bella, bellissima!_ " cries a woman, breaking you from your thoughts, joined by an entourage of whistles and a great chunk of the crowd pay their blessings to the Busker before they leave on their way, chattering about the scene prior with their companions, if they have companions. Others, alone, try and hide their smiles. Some even pull out their phones and tap away at their screens, or put away their phones after very possibly video taping.

You see the guitarist winding down, tuning his guitar a little bit and strumming with his long fingernails. Those fingernails are only on one hand, you see; for a brief moment, you analyze him and shuffle your boots in place. He plays left-handed. His eyes are pale. His collar is stained with a speck of color that just can't wash out.

When you step up to him, he opens those eyes at your footsteps, a car driving by and leaving a breeze to ruffle his sleeves and hair and you admire every bit of it. On one knee, you take out from your pocket your paying in two bills and set them in the guitar case in front of the blonde. "May I know your name, _amico mio_?" you ask, inquisiting and he immediately focuses his eyes on the scar on your lip, sub-consciously worrying the corner of his lip with his tongue at the sight of it. 

The voice that comes out of his mouth is not what you were expecting at all. You expect something ragged, overused and raspy. Instead, it purs like a thrumming pulse and through the air it chimes in the wind; "Leo."

"Leo," you echo, tilting your head just slightly and shake his extended hand-- the right one without the long nails. Little details, little details. "Thank you for such a performance."

"Thank you for being my audience," Leo says, and the words he chooses make your heart stop for a moment. Leo didn't specify being part of his audience. You pout visibly, friendly. "Or, part of my audience." Leo corrects.

"Aw, so I'm not special?" you mope, and he laughs; rich and light, like vanilla gelato. 

" _A ciascuno il suo_ ," Leo sighs, and smiles up at you, then down at his guitar.

"How did you learn to play? Like a god, I mean," you add, making him laugh again; you can like that laugh. 

Leo lols his head, choosing his words in his head for a moment. He tries to make eye contact with the shadows in your hood, twiddling with the chain around his neck. There's a lock strung on it, not a locket, but a _lock_. "You can say I dropped the tutor and kept the guitar." 

"You can also say that you have a new regular to admire you," you add for the blonde, and he smiles shyly as he bows his head. " _Arrivederci_ , Leo," you say and smile, listening to his echo that slows when he realizes, in that moment, he doesn't know your name. "Ezio," you tell him. The brunette hands you two sticks of incense, and you take them with gratitude.

" _Arrivederci_ , Ezio," he waves to you as you turn on your heel with a slight swivel in your hips, contemplating whether or not to hide on the rooftop next to the busker until he leaves.

The soft wind-down, sort of exercise strumming stays in earshot the entire time you maneuver to the closest fire escape to get to a planter ledge beside a boarded window. You listen to Leo's playing, his exchanges of words to the brunette beside him that was mainly silent in your presence, as well as, as you kind of expected, his hushed singing. It fits so well with the setting of the spring sun, you note, and skygaze and people-watch until your calling. In this time, you learn that the brunette's name is most definitely Salai.

\-------

Below, at sunset, right after Salai has told Leo that he needs to get going, probably to some sort of class, you hear a gasp.

"Salai." Leo calls. His voice sounds rigid.

"Leeeonardo?" Salai mimicks, and you see him turn his body from his place already few meters away.

Leonardo's voice is filled with disbelief, of uncertainty, of something a little more: "That... That _man_ guy gave us fourty euros."

"No," Salai breathes, finding it just as hard to believe as the other, as he scurries to Leonardo's side.

" _Fourty euros!_ " Leonardo repeats, in a hissed whisper. A smile shows through his quieted voice.

Knowing your job is done, finding content within it, you head up to the top of the buildings, looking back as Leo hugs Salai goodbye, each twenty euros richer, until turning back to get to your destination before it closes.

It'd be a shame to be yelled at in Arabic for forgetting the groceries. A big, big shame.

\-------

You try your best to sneak through the window unnoticed, but really, you're all eavesdroppers and vigilantes, how could you not go unnoticed while carrying a paper bag filled with crinkling things? In many ways.

The warning comes in the simultaneous clearing of throats, respectively. 

"Ezio?" Desmond croons, catching your wide, caught-in-the-act eyes through the window at the Kitchen bar. Next to him sits the Syrian, eyes thinned and piercing right through you.

"Ai, you're burning my earlobes, Altair," you complain softly, like the teenager inside of you, placing the grocery bag on the coffee table. "I don't even know which one's which, you two look the same!" you further complain, gesturing with your hand after sliding through the window. 

" _I'm_ not a redhead," Desmond pipes in, holding up a finger matter-of-factly.

"It's _auburn_ , Desmond," Altair growls, and rolls his eyes in defeat at the way Desmond mouths his exact words with ease. 

"You look the same as us, Ezio," Desmond sighs, pondering on that thought for a moment.

"I have a rounder nose, your eyes are closer together and... Well, Altair won't shave his upper lip."

"The one thing we have in common is shitty parents," Altair snickers to a slowly nodding Desmond, standing and striding over to the couches to turn on the news and plop down cross-legged into a recliner. 

"Damn straight. What did you do today, Ezio?" 

"You tell me first," you reply quickly, a little bit reluctant to tell the news of today.

"Well, I got interviewed for being one of the most favored bartenders in southern Italy," Desmond shrugs, chewing on the inside of his lip and slugging back the last bit of his scotch.

"By whom..?" you ask, slowly, the Big Brother side kicking in.

"Some tea snorting ginger in a sweater vest," Altair mocks, not very much agknowledging Ezio's laugh. Desmond rolls his eyes and shakes his head.

"What of you, E-Z?" the American asks, and his and Altiar's eyes burn holes in the back of your head right as you try to escape into the hallway to the bathroom.

"I..." you begin, turning slowly and holding your hands out, shrugging non chalantly. "I gave fourty euros to a busker."

Dead silence. Not good.

_"What?"_ comes the combined reply at once. 

"No, no, no, you don't understand," you interject, trying not to laugh at their faces. Both expressions clearly scream, "What the _fuck_ , Ezio!" 

_Speak of the fucking devil._

The news blares a report of a 'Guitarist Given a Blessing'. On the screen, It's Leonardo, albeit shyly, reprimanding how a man with a name he can't remember gave him such an amount of money for simply doing what he loves. You three are staring at the screen, wide-eyed, but then they look back at you. Only you. 

"You gave that guy fourty--" 

"He gave me a boner... with _music_ ," you explain as slowly as you hold out your hands and back away. 

You slept on the couch that night. _Again._


End file.
